Dairy & Beef News

The cost of calf pneumonia is considerable on UK farms, with well-known implications for rearing costs, profitability and lifetime yield. While vaccination is key to control plans, live intranasal vaccines can offer enhanced protection and bridge the immunity gap in the first few months of life.

Supermarket sales of all dairy products remain higher than they were pre-pandemic, with an extra 302 million litres of milk bought last year compared to 2019, according to AHDB figures.

Taking place from 2nd – 9th February, the event celebrates the progress made since the launch of the GB Calf Strategy and has seen a range of experts offering guidance to improve calf performance.

Calf scour is significant when it comes to the future health and performance of every herd, but controlling it can be a challenge. Virbac experts take a comprehensive look at the causes and multifactorial approaches to control.

Calves are an expensive commodity nowadays, and to successfully rear healthy calves, prevention of disease is a better financial bet than firefighting clinical outbreaks and attempting expensive treatment. Boosting of gut health and the general immune system, together with avoidance of calf scour and calf pneumonia is of paramount importance to avoid a negative financial impact.

Having an effective cleaning and disinfection programme is essential in modern calf house management, to reduce the risk of disease. Evans Vanodine provides advice on a controlled disinfection programme.

NFU president Minette Batters met with minister for exports Mike Freer MP, to explain the NFU Dairy Export Strategy designed to help unlock new opportunities within international markets. 

Adverts by the oat drink brand attracted over 100 complaints, with critics raising concerns about the company’s environmental claims.

As changes to Red Tractor standards loom, an on-farm pilot initiative is tackling the key challenges of breeding, rearing and marketing.

The Royal Association of British Dairy Farmers (RABDF) has welcomed the retailer’s decision to tackle food waste by swapping use-by dates for best before on the majority of its own-brand milk.

With risk of tick-borne diseases changing as new seasonal and geographical patterns emerge, Ruminant Health and Welfare (RH&W) has brought together a new online resource to help farmers and vets to tackle these diseases.

Last year, Adrian Bland of Ninezergh Farm began taking steps to tackle increasingly high somatic cell counts in his 120-cow milking herd. Just over a year on, he took part in a recent AHDB webinar to explain the farm’s progress.